Mosquitoes Use 3 Senses

Mosquitoes Use 3 Senses to Decide Whether You’re Worth a Bite

Have you ever wondered how mosquitoes pick their victims? If mosquitoes are continually biting you, it may seem like terrible luck, but there’s a pattern to the madness. In fact, mosquitoes use three senses to decide whether you’re worth a bite. Their cues are olfactory, visual and thermal.

First They Smell You :

“Mosquitoes Use Vision to Associate Odor Plumes with Thermal Targets” by authors Floris van Breugel, Jeff Riffel, Adrienne Fairhall, and Michael H. Dickinson confirms the extended hypothesis that mosquitoes use their sense of smell to first find the target. However, the paper also determined how mosquitoes do it.

They detect humans by the CO2 plumes in their breath, which mosquitoes can distinguish from as much as far as 50 meters away. The CO2 plume is their determining factor of whether they’ll go for the prey or not: if it’s not present, mosquitoes disregard their other prey-locating senses. That makes perfect sense since CO2 is what gives us away — you couldn’t hold your breath long enough to repel a mosquito even if you tried.

Then They See You :

Once a CO2 plume alerts mosquitoes to the presence of living, breathing things, they use their more limited sight to zero in on the target. According to the study, mosquitoes can see and recognize humans and animals from between 5 to 15 meters away. That’s how they track their prey, in combination with their sense of smell. Of course, mosquitoes don’t want to waste their time exploring rocks and vegetation — they want to focus on the dinner. In a wind tunnel, mosquitoes would visually lock a target only if a CO2 plume was present.

Then They Find the Perfect Spot to Bite :

After they’ve tracked you for a while and decided that you might be suitable prey, a mosquito will use its heat sensors to determine what’s the best place to bite you. Your body leaves a heat signature that mosquitoes can read and decipher at a distance of less than a meter. Mosquitoes have a preference for warmth, which is not dependent on whether CO2 is present or not, according to the study. Your heat signature shows them where the soft spots for biting are, and if you taste sweet, you’re getting stung.

Mosquito Repellents :

It is likely the reason why repellents aren’t as efficient as they should be. They can make you less attractive to mosquitoes, but if you’re already an excellent target for them, there’s only so much a standard repellent can do. Whether you’re using natural remedies or going with a full-blown chemical attack, the protection doesn’t last long. Before you know it, you’ll be susceptible to mosquito bites again, and in a city like Mumbai, especially during monsoon, that can be dangerous because of the various diseases mosquitoes spread.

So what can you do? Preventing them from breeding around your home is a logical step. With Sterling Pest Control mosquito treatment, your home will be safe from the buzzing, disease-carrying bugs we all hate.